Best way of acclimatizing

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rudeboy1

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Hi All

Which is the best way to acclimatize fish, corals, inverts, clams etc.

Whenever I make a purchase at a specific pet store I always take the time out to find out how they recommend i acclimate the new purchase.

Which is the best way to acclimate a new purchase?

I am always told that with coral and clams I can just put them right into the tank.

What method do people choose to do? Drip or Floating?

If i purchase more than 1 fish can I put them in a container and drip them together?

Which is the safest way to ensure that we do not loose anything we purchase to the poor way we acclimate them!
 
Float in sump and drip with gravity feed from tank. And NO! Corals and clams should be acclimatised slowly too.
Of course best practice is to QT all additions, in which case a drip feed from tank not possible if no sump. In such an instance place in bowl poutside tank and drip from QT tank. Then after QT you can simply do big ( but slow) water change in qt tank using water From display.
 
Nice. Someone is still awake. I did anyway because just putting something into the tank does not seem like a good idea.

If i purchase 5-6 fish from 1 LFS and want to put them all in a bucket and drip them? Is that possible?

I am a firm believer in the drip method. It slowly adjusts the temp, salinity etc.
 
rudeboy1 said:
If i purchase 5-6 fish from 1 LFS and want to put them all in a bucket and drip them?
Click to expand...
if they all did come out of the same setup at the LFS, yes.

Else drip them separate. Snails and other inverts should be dripped double the time than fish, and slower.
 
How long should it take to drip 1 fish? For example a yellow tang?

Would it be better matching up the tank water up with the bag water until the last drop?
 
I normally move whatever I drip into a small tank that is in the sump. And attach that tank with the magnet cleaner to the side of the sump to prevent it from falling over. I make sure that it is filled less than half.
Then use drip line, and let it drip until almost full. Then siphon out 50%. And let it drip again until almost full. Then I remove the fish.
The water I drained plus whatever is in the little tank I normally throw away.
Just fill up with SW until normal level is reached. While busy switch the ATU off.
 
rudeboy1 said:
How long should it take to drip 1 fish? For example a yellow tang?

Would it be better matching up the tank water up with the bag water until the last drop?
Click to expand...

This all depends... You got to understand what you are actually trying to achieve..
You are trying to slowly match the fish’s incoming parameters with your own tanks
parameters. The biggest time consumer here is ph, this needs to be done as slow as possible

Here are a few factors that you need to consider:

1) What is the difference between your parameters vs. the place where the fish is coming from. This will include salinity, ph, temp, Dissolved oxygen...If your parameters are totally different it is going to take you much longer to acclimate the fish.

2) How long it takes to transport the fish...During the transport time fish can produce toxic ammonia and ph can drop dramatically

This is a table from our SOP that i use when i am receiving shipment from fish abroad...Note that I haven’t included salinity and temp because our suppliers are able to pretty much guarantee those readings on arrival. Obviously to the normal aquarist it is difficult to obtain accurate measuring equipment but this gives you some sort of idea how long it can take to acclimate some fish.

Parameter
Measured value
Action
Dissolved Oxygen
<85%
Life threatening-add oxygen
85% - 95%
Add air
PH
≤6.0
Life threatening-Raise by no more than 0.6 – 0.9 per hour
6.0 – 7.0
Raise by no more than 0.8 per hour
7.0 – 8.2
Raise by no more than 0.4 per hour
Ammonia
≥1.0mg/l
Life threatening-Prime/Amquel at recommended dose rate, followed by % water change
0 – 1mg/l
Prime/Amquel at recommended dose rate



For your case i wouldn’t stress too much. I would find out what your suppliers water parameters are and acclimate your fish according to what your results are. The drip method works best. Make sure you regulate the flow into your bucket so that you have a steady drip. Also DO NOT ADD an airstone to your acclimation container, this will raise your pH way to fast and you do not want that to happen. In your case you shouldn’t need to drip more than 20min worth of water. If your container fills up just discard the excess water and carry on the acclimation process…
 
I bag drip from the DT to the bag placed inthe sump...my rule of thumb is 45mins for clowns 1hr maybe more for Tangs and Blenny's & Goby's 30mins..i have had no fatalities (touch wood) Snails 1h30min slow drip..I have never used drip method on corals and mayb it's a gopod way of acclimatizing them they or rather mine always seems to open up or acclimatise by the 2 or sometimes 3rd day..
 
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